The Life of Death
by randomWriter32
Summary: I'm really bad at these...  Gabriella has become accustom to her life where death follows her around like a rain cloud. But the day of her sixteenth birthday brings changes that make her her question everything she believed in.
1. Chapter 1

_**I don't own Meridian. **_

_**PS: I haven't read the book in a while so sorry if I mix things up or forget things...**_

I have always been surrounded by death. Even when I was a baby, creatures found me. At first, being little, I thought this was cool, until the day I realized they were still because they were dead. After that, I tried to hide from them. Nothing could stop the force of nature, and so I became accustom to the life of death.

_3:00 a.m. Monday, September 30__th_

_It's my sixteenth birthday, imagine that. I can't seem to sleep tonight- this morning._

Hearing a soft knock on my door, I flipped my journal shut, clicked off my light, and pulled my covers over my head in a little over a second.

"Come on, Gabby, I know you're up," Mothers have a sixth sense or something.

"Mom, It's three am!" I define the time in two mini sentences.

She enters my room as I sit up and cross my arms. After staring me down with her green speckled eyes does she speak, "I'm just afraid of losing you, Gabby. You just grow up so fast,"

It was times like this when my life seemed confusing. I had grown accustom to the looks of horror on people's faces when they see dead things around me. Those things themselves had made me a hard person. Both my parents had come to accept that, but it was these times when mom just seemed to melt like goo and get all sensitive.

Walking over, she leans down and kisses my forehead, "Just promise me, Gabriella, you will never forget that your father and I love you," her voice seems to wobble.

"You make me promise this all the time, I don't understand why you think I would forget it." The statement rings true.

"Sometimes things change," was the only advice she offered me.

...

Sunrise is my favorite time of day. I sit at my window, cocoa in hand, watching the sky turn purple, pink, and red over the graveyard which we now call our back yard. Most people would find it eerie, living next to a graveyard. For me, it is just another house that completes the 'surrounded by death' phrase I often use to describe myself in my head.

After a good portion of the sun was up, I grab some clean cloths and head to the bathroom.

Steam fills my nose and hot water rushes over me, loosening tightened muscles. This is probably my second favorite part of the day. Feeling clean and ride of death, I step out.

I sigh as I brush up a dead cricket and a few lady bugs and throw them away.

I can smell the pancakes before anything. Nearing the kitchen I can hear my mother humming a tune from last night's _Friends_ rerun. While drizzling my pancakes in syrup, I notice my mother staring at me, "Wow, Gabby, you're sixteen," there is that line of concern on her forehead, so deep that I think it might be etched there forever.

...

Darting out the door I catch a glimpse of my mother standing in the window, my father behind her. She looks older today, standing there with a cracked coffee mug in hand, hair flying loosely outside of her attempted bun. I take it all in, feeling the need to remember this moment.

A screech of tires startls me. A deer was crossing the road, which isn't strange when you live outside of town, but the van wouldn't seem to stop. It swerves, sending it right into another vehicle.

The pain starts at my heart, and with each beat, sends the pain deeper and deeper into my body. I feel like I am on fire, barely able to tell that my mother is making an effort to pull me towards the house. I struggle along with her to get me away from the scene.

Finally, Dad picks me up and sets me inside the car. We speed away from the house, and little do I know, from our lives.

**A/N: This is only my second story, and I haven't been on here since 2009. If you R&R it will be greatly appr eciated.**


	2. Chapter 2

I stare at the picture my father gave me. It wasn't too long ago that he and my mother dropped me off at the airport, handing me a ticket, a bag, and a picture. Mom squeezed me so tightly that it almost cut off my air supply. Dad kissed my forehead and whispered, "_It's the only way, Gabriella,"_ before bidding me farewell.

The picture was of the family ten years ago. I had worn a smile then, not afraid of the curse that haunts me now. I am mad, yes, but I think that is reasonable under these conditions. I mean, it's not every day that you have pain without being touched and then your parents ship you off to some aunt you've never even heard of.

I close my eyes and pretend I'm at home, staring out over the graveyard, enjoying the peace, the quiet that radiates of the place. It is hard at first, with the chatter of other people around me, and of course the noise coming from the plane but after a minute or so I am home again.

…

Finally, landing at the Cody, WY airport, am looking for 'Aunt Shannon.' I grab my bag and take a seat. Besides, I have no clue where she lives.

For a while, I watch people pass and go, not stopping to notice the girl who has been sitting in the same chair for at least an hour. Eventually, the day must get the best of me because my eyes are closing, and I cannot make them open again.

…

I don't wish to open my eyes. It's just one of those times when your dreams are so good and then you remember yesterday and your eyes are flying open before you know what's really going on.

The room is neutral colors, reminding me of a hotel room. I slip on some clean cloths and wander down a hall, then a staircase, and find my nose taking me to the kitchen. I can't remember the last time I had something that looked as good as the muffins that sat, tauntingly, on the counter.

Grabbing one, still warm, I thought about eating it nicely but with no one around I decided to shove the muffin in my mouth. Chomping down on a bite, a guy, about my age, walks in with ripped jeans and a T-shirt on.

"Well, hello Sleeping Beauty," there is heavy sarcasm in his voice. He had dirty blonde hair and pretty blue eyes.

"Lucas," a woman's voice chides, "She just woke up. No need to spook her,"

"Yet," Lucas added under his breath.

The woman, Aunt Shannon was taller than I had imagined. She stood about six inches taller than my 5'1". She also wore ripped jeans and a T-shirt with a brown and gray braid running down her back. After washing her hands the kitchen sink, she sits down across from me and grabs a muffin for herself.

"How are you this morning?" She asks in a cheery voice.

"How am I supposed to feel?" I ask, nonchalantly, "Let's see, I turn sixteen, there's an accident, suddenly I'm rushed off to here, and I have no clue what's going on! As a plus, I don't even know how I got here,"

"Lucas brought you here from the airport," she said, sidestepping all of my rage.

After ignoring any questions I ask she tells me that all will be explained later because there are daily chores to be done. My "chore" being to "get settled in" and unpack my things.

…

When I reached my room Lucas was there. He was looking at the photograph of my family. Standing in the doorway, I realize he must not have heard me. His shoulders are tight, every muscle I can see is held tense. For some odd reason, I want to reach out and sooth the out the lines of tiredness I see hanging on him like a shadow.

Sliding my weight onto my other foot the old wooden floor decided to creek. Lucas looked up unworriedly as if he knew I had been standing there. Laying the frame back down on the bed he stood and brushed past me as if I were only a picture on the wall.

I stood there for a second watching him go before jumping up on the mass of pillows and blankets they called a bed here. I held the simple frame in my hands tracing the outline of 'my little happy family.' Thinking of it now, this was the only picture we had of me. I never had school pictures because mom had always come up with some obnoxious reason for me to miss school that day.

Missing my family terribly, I decide that I will get answers to what's happening. Feeling determined I throw open the curtains that block the sunny view of the outside world. Maybe I didn't know what to expect but it wasn't this. Horses.

A long barn runs parallel to my window. In the barn yard, six horses romp around. Aunt Shannon is petting one of the six, a pretty brown horse with a star on her face and a colt at her heels. Holding out her hand, she feeds the mother horse something, probably a sugar cube.

It remains a sweet memory for my first day here.


End file.
